


Step by Step, Side by Side

by erlie1727



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1390939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlie1727/pseuds/erlie1727
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tomas lost the forth match of the Davis Cup finals 2013, same as the previous year. How was his feeling?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step by Step, Side by Side

**Author's Note:**

> I love [the pic which Berdy posted on his Twitter after the match](https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/402143733099294720)... so it was used in this fic.  
> Also I love the nickname “Steps”... so it was used as this title.
> 
> Now these days the DC week without Berdy (decided of his own will), I've spun a daydream about how Steps feels his absence... so it may be used in my fic in the future :P

It's the same as last year.  
  
While thinking so, I left the shower room. Even by myself I could sense that my steps were much heavy judging from my walking.  
I thought as if I was likely to sink whenever I walked forward step by step as my feeling and the pressure were too heavy. If I've put myself sunk rather than gone ahead, I could avoid to meet with anybody.  
  
I seemed to have arrived at the destination somehow or other when I noticed. A door to our locker room came out. The closed metal plates stood in front of me silently, as if it would refuse me.  
I put my hand on a doorknob. I didn't know well whether that was hot or cold. The knob made me look blank, since when I had turned it clockwise in dull mood, the door could be opened with less power than expected. I pushed the door slowly, and found my teammate in his game clothes there.

He called the clothes ‘a lucky charm’.  
Perhaps, from last year he had begun to wear the shirt, which he had put on in the fifth game of the finals in that year. Maybe only he can dress it stylishly. An impressing double tailed lion of our country's symbol decorated the bright blue material. I remembered that when I had said it would never have suited me, and he had answered that it should have looked good on nobody but him, with a laugh.

Being in such a wear, he watched me. I guessed that he had been likely to drape on his jersey, and turned only his face to where a sound had come suddenly, not his whole body. However, he showed a smile and approached one step nearer to me fluttering the snow-white jersey and letting pass the sleeves, when he realized that it's me who entered to the room. His step was very different from my one. Compared to him who would proceed to the battlefield next, I wore the stagnated air around myself.  
Not only for him, but also to encourage myself, when I was going to lift the edge of fixed lips, the moment had come.

He asked me in merely one phrase.  
“Do you want to win?”  
For my brain that had been filled with excitement and tension until that time, it's hard to understand words immediately, taking a bit long time.  
He approached to me one more step slowly, then asked me while putting his hands on his waist, and inclining his head to the side.  
“I mean, do you want to win Davis Cup this year again?”  
His usual smile was made. Without fear, like a boy, unbecoming to his age. A canine seen from the gap of his lips shined.

“... Yes.”  
Finally I got the meaning. I felt that some of my heavy feelings went away, and I was tempted to laugh by him, though not similar to his. After seeing me with satisfaction, he winked at me.  
“Then throw away such blue face, and look at me well.”  
His hand was put to my head fondly.  
I am not a child. Whenever he placed his hand on my head like that, I claimed like this. But at that time, it made me reassured very much.

Later, I caught slight sense of incongruity.  
If it was not just my imagination, his hand was palpitating a little bit.  
“Or I can't be in form.”  
Yes. My game is having been already over. His game is begin from now on. What not I but he does have are uneasiness, strain, excitement, strong pressure, which I had felt while ago. He is going to encourage me while holding all of them.

Then what can I do for him by myself?  
“Yes.”  
I made answer seeing his eyes straight.  
“I rely on you, Radek.”  
That's all.  
Believing him.  
That's all of what I can do for him now.

“Yup.”  
There was a transient time which I felt a sign such as losing power from the hand on my head.  
“I know, my man.”  
He patted my head several times roughly in spite of the cap on there.  
“See you later.”  
“See you.”  
His hand was lowered from higher place, and grasped tightly. He pushed his fist out in front of me. I imitated it too.  
Two fists conflicted without making a sound, and we stared at each other's eyes. I was reflected in his dark brown eyes. The man in his pupils seemed to have completely regained spirit.  
I hope that also he is as so. I hope I could dispel both of uneasiness and the strain from him. I hope he show his characteristic at the full of his best.  
  
Although it was a really short interlude, I experienced that all of what had been exchanged at the moment, such as eyes, words, feelings, satisfied me. When I saw him returning his heel, and letters of ‘CZECH REPUBLIC' inscribed on his back, I felt like crying a little again.  
But it's not at all because of negative feelings like sadness or mortification. I had a very calm feeling although it was the finals. I looked up at the ceiling without haste. A fluorescent lamp was dazzling, but less than he was at that time. Closing my eyes, and remembering his back once again, I imagined that I was on his side. He said that he wanted to play with me. I thought so, too. I think so. I've thought so all the time.

It's not necessary to walk like him. The important things are to walk together, to get into step with each other, and sometimes to lead and at other times to be lead.

I took a step forward.


End file.
